Materia Medica by Kent

HYDRASTIS CANADENSIS

(hydr)

Hydrastis is a slow, deep acting remedy, required in many trophic disturbances, where there is emaciation, catarrhal conditions and ulceration, even malignant ulceration. Defective assimilation. When it is noticed that the stomach is the center of most of the symptom complex. The desires and aversions often give the key to a very complex totality of symptoms. In this remedy the sinking empty hunger with loathing of food is striking, strange, rare, and therefore peculiar. It is characteristic because it is a general of the remedy, and is predicated of the patient. Great weakness prevails at all times. Catarrhal symptoms with thick, viscid, ropy, YELLOW mucus, sometimes white, from any mucous membrane, with or without ulceration. Deep eating spreading ulcers upon the skin or mucous membrane, with thick, viscid, yellow pus. Induration in glands, in base of ulcers. False granulations that bleed much and easily, on the slightest touch. This remedy has been very useful in the treatment of malignant ulcers. In such ulcers it is often a great comfort to the patient, even when it does not cure, as it removes the offensiveness, modifies the pain and restrains the destructiveness. The burning so commonly found in such ulcers is a strong symptom of Hydrastis. When the weakness and emaciation have progressed together for months and years in chronic stomach disease, fainting comes on, and this is also found in Hydrastis. In chronic cases, when the tissues have suffered and not the mind. The astonishing absence of mental symptoms except the general discouragement incidental to long suffering and weakness is striking. If it were carefully proved, most likely the mental loves and hates would come out. The symptoms are better during rest. Small wounds bleed and suppurate.

The headaches are only such as generally belong to stomach disorders, and prolonged nasal catarrh. They are not distinctive. It has cured eczema with thick crusts.

The nose is obstructed with stringy, yellow or white mucus. The air feels cold in the nose, and the membrane is raw and ulcerated. Ropy mucus is drawn from posterior nares into the throat. Rawness in both nares with constant urging to blow the nose. Coryza with discharge, scanty in room and profuse in open air. Bloody, purulent discharge from nose. Thick, white, or yellow mucous discharge. Large crusts constantly form in the nose.

The face is sickly, shrunken, pale, waxy, cachectic, jaundiced. It is of great service in epithelioma of face, nose or lip.

The tongue is yellow, large, flabby and spongy. Feels as if burnt.

Ulceration of mouth, gums, tongue; spreading and burning, Aphthae in children and nursing mothers. Excessive secretions of ropy mucus, golden yellow. Excoriation of mouth. In old mercurial cases.

Catarrhal sore throat of long standing, granulated and ulcerated; excoriated and burning. Thick, viscid, yellow mucus that can be drawn out in ropes.

No appetite; no thirst; loathing of food. Nearly all foods disorder the stomach. Spitting up the food by the mouthful (like PHOS. and FERR.). Vomits all food. Retains only water and milk. Eructations, sour, putrid, of food eaten. EMPTY, FAINTFEELINGINSTOMACHWITHLOATHINGOFFOODANDOBSTINATECONSTIPATIONWITHNODESIREFORSTOOL is a combination that must generally have Hydrastis. Pulsation in the stomach. Ulceration of the stomach with burning. For suspicious lump in region of pyloris. Weight in stomach after eating. The stomach seems to be only an ordinary sack; digestion is slow, and tedious. Fulness after eating, lasting a long time. The empty, sinking feeling is not ameliorated after eating. Sour vomiting. Chronic gastric catarrh. Slow digestion.

This must be a useful liver remedy, for the following reasons: The skin is jaundiced; the stool is light, even white, showing the absence of bile, and there is distress in the region of the liver. In chronic derangement of the liver. Liver enlarged, hard and nodular.

Cramping pains. Colic, flatulence and distended abdomen. It has cured many of the usual conditions that generally attend bad digestion and torpid liver. Intestinal catarrh and ulceration. Sharp pain in region of spleen.

It has cured obstinate piles, ulceration and fissures of anus. Relaxation and prolapsus of anus. Chronic diarrhoea with yellow, thin faeces, even watery. Inflammation of anus. Stools, bileless, white, soft, acrid, greenish, much viscid mucus. Hard, nodular stools. Most obstinate constipation; no desire for stool for days. Paresis of the rectum. It cures constipation, when the stomach symptoms agree. In old cases when enemas no longer act, when the faeces remain high up, or do not come down into rectum to excite desire, this remedy has been of great service. In constipation or diarrhoea with "goneness" in stomach, trembling in the abdomen and palpitation.

Urine scanty or suppressed. Chronic catarrh of bladder with much viscid mucus in urine, causing difficulty in flow of urine.

Catarrh of the urethra. Chronic gonorrhoea when the discharge remains yellow in spite of time. Copious, painless discharge. Relaxed scrotum and testes. Offensive sweat of genitals.